Given a tiara and a nice cape, I could rule the world!

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Maybe my children need to reread our house rules! If you have never read these you really should. Some are quite funny.

Rules can be added to or modified at mom or dad leisure. These rules will be in effect until we say so.

We are not amused with your current behavior.

Thank you,

The Parental Units

Our house rules!

1. We all live in the house we all help with the household chores. No one get money for chores.
2. Whoever makes it, gets to flush it.
3. If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie wipe the seatie.
4. Don’t put the playground rock up your nose, the average 4 yr old can hold somewhere in the ball park of 13 rocks up there before one has to take one to doctor’s office for removal, it has been tested and we don’t need a repeat.
5. No talking or TV watching at the breakfast table, it is hard enough to get them going in the morning.
6. Children eat meals at the kitchen table.
7. You must have a glass of water at dinner first than you can have kool-aid.
8. If you don’t eat your dinner than it will be wrapped and will be waiting for you in the fridge and nothing else will be had until the plate is clean, that night.
9. Talking and touching of bodily functions and parts is only to be done in the bathroom, this is thanks to Bradley.
10. The f-word and the s-word are only allowed only if you bring mom or dad $250,000 first in hard cold cash, live on your own, are a movie star, or a rock star.
11. The watching of violent and scary movies is permitted after a 3 page essay on the topic of the movie.
12. The car is a mandatory shoe-wearing zone. Flip-flops are not allowed at the park.
13. Singing is allowed in the tub, car, outside, and in one’s own bedroom.
14. Knock before entering shut doors AND wait for a response before entering. No sabotaging of sibling belongs while they are away from house or room.
15. If you lock mom in a room for 45 minutes and go and turn the volume up on the TV so you can’t hear her, you better be prepared to face the consequences and better be able to stay an arms length away from her for 3 days.
16. If you put a basketball in the dryer without mom knowing it and she doesn’t see it and starts the dryer and said basketball explodes and makes mom freak out you had better be conducting a science experiment. If said dryer stops working you will be explaining to dad why we have to buy a new dryer.
17. Bubble Gum, Silly Putty, and Baby Powder should NEVER EVER be in the same room as the hair dryer.
18. Dog leashes, stuffed animals and boys are prohibited from the ceiling fans.
19. When using paint ball, bee bee, or soft shell guns outside and practice shooting NEVER aim your gun at the house, your siblings, or the dogs/chickens.
20. The only thing that should be flushed down the toilet is bodily functions; toy size Tupperware cups will not make it past the U bend.
21. Bleach is to be handled and used ONLY by people who can drive a car.
22. Play Dough is not allowed to be played with within 30 feet of the microwave or used in the same sentence together ever again.
23. Play Dough is only allowed with a tarp under the table and adult supervision.
24. Garbage bags are for trash, not parachutes.
25. Always look in the oven before turning it on and plastic toys and ovens should NEVER be combined.
26. The roof is OFF LIMITS to anyone under 6 feet tall.
27. If mom is in the bath with the door locked leave her alone unless there is a fire truck with lights flashing outside the house, a family member is spouting blood, or dad is knocked out and no don’t hit your father to knock him out.
28. If you leave an empty roll of toilet paper on the holder you will do the dishes for the next 3 days.
29. If the phone rings and you know the number, answer it.
30. Use pens and papers to write down notes and phone numbers, not body parts. And Sharpie markers should not be used on body parts or siblings.
31. From now until forever Finger Paint is a controlled substance.
32. Ketchup is not a vegetable.
33. English can not be taken again in school as a foreign language credit if you fail it the first time.
34. If you spill something clean it up or you will mop and sweep the house every week for a month.
35. If mom and dad say no, you can’t go ask one of the many grandparents you have.
36. Socks and underwear MUST be changed EVERYDAY!
37. Children under 5 feet tall are not allowed to touch my scrap booking items.
38. Finish cereal in pantry before opening new box and when opening new box put it in the Tupperware container.
39. For every D you have at the end of the year will delay your getting your driver’s license by one month.
40.Phone calls must end at 9pm on school nights and by 11pm on weekends or non-school nights.
41. Girlfriend/boyfriend may come over if house passes mom’s inspection.
42. If you are going to be in your room with said girlfriend/boyfriend door remains open, shoes on, & sitting on floor. No horizontal allowed!
43. Frequent visits by parents and siblings will be expected and permitted.
44. Girlfriend/boyfriend must leave by 10pm on weekend.
45. No school day visits are allowed.
46. Parents must be home during said visitation.
47. If you go somewhere you must check-in at said time that was agreed upon before departure. Failure to do so will result in grounding.
48. Unless you have a car, good paying job, and a home of you own no hanky panky is allowed. Talking about mom’s past will not be tolerated and will result in immediate grounding.
49. Put away laundry the day mom puts it in your room, no living out of the laundry basket.
50. Food belongs in the kitchen, no science experiments are allowed in bedrooms.
51. Make your bed in the morning BEFORE you go to school.
52. Coats belong in entry way behind the front door.
53. We will not have 10 pairs of shoes by the front door.
54. Snack are twice a day, not every hour.
55. If you are Chihuahua patrol and the animal poops in the house, you get the patrol for the rest of the week. Keeping said animals in cage all the time doesn’t count as patrol time.
56. You must log in your video game and tv time in the log book. Over use of video games and tv time will result in cut backs in next week’s hours.
57. If you make a mess clean it up, do not walk away from it, CLEAN IT UP!
58. Shower curtain liners are there for a purpose, use them.
59. Trash goes in the trash bin, not on top or on the deck.
60. If you like your underwear keep them in the drawer, laundry basket, and the laundry room closed. Winston Churchill, the beabull, cannot be trusted.
61. Showers are a daily must, keeping the dirt and luck for the next day are not allowed.
62. Calling a girl “Shorty” is not now or be it ever be acceptable.
63. The DVR is set up to record certain programs don’t stop them without permission from mom or dad.
64. No TV, XBOX, Wii, movies, playing, or leaving the house until your chores off the list are done.
65. Sunscreen is needed when outside. Off will be worn when in backyards.
66. Curfew will be 11pm for 17yr. olds.
67. During the summer time you will not sleep all day, 10am is go time.

I need a system that organizes all of our schedules, that I can take with me, doesn’t require the all my sticky notes, and can’t be wiped off at the end of the month.

I need a system that I can access from my phone and my home computer.

I need it to be easy for me to use, and doesn’t require a lot of thought.

I have tried apps in the past with no real luck…….

Opus Domini was maybe my most successful app. You could build your personal mission, visualize and set your course, define your goals, have a daily blueprint of your life, categorize into four area how important a task was, have multiple planning views, and had a tasks, calendar & events, notes, growth tools, and cloud back up & sync. But it is only available for Mac, iPod, and iPhones, I have an android and I am perfectly happy with it.

Planner Plus is ok as it is the closest to Opus Domini. You can create tasks, events, notes, has different views, and is color coded.

CalenMob is a Google Calendar app with intuitive design. I am trying this for my home business but not liking it.

Schedule Planner this actually has something I wish Opus Domini had “Planned” vs “Actual” day planning interface. But honestly the whole thing is a little confusing on how to do everything. Like an information OVERLOAD!

Cozi and everyone raves about this one. Maybe I just haven’t given it a fair enough shot. It has a family calendar, shopping lists, to-do lists, family journal, and meals. But honestly it looks overwhelming and like an overload of information. I do like that my husband and daughter can have it on their phones and we can all be connected. Not too sure after that.

What are your thoughts and opinions? Do you have an app that you love and can’t live without?

Now, I have Home Management Binders and I love them. But I am not lugging them all over! I made these back in 2013, after my mother-in-law died and I went through her paperwork for two days!

I had been looking for months for home management system that fit me. No luck! I mean what could possible fit a person as complex as myself. I could make the sheets but I knew there was blanks out there waiting for me to find. Than I started piecing one together…….. what a pain! I mean each had a different theme and I like everything to flow. Besides things started to mix and nothing was clear-cut.

I found most of my print of at Life Your Way , it is an awesome site and is worth you checking out. No, really go! I will wait right here, take as long as you need, I’ll wait……………

Oh, your back? Are you as impressed as me?

Anyways they have over 200 printables! Than there is the whole article about how to use a Home Management Notebook, which you can find here.

I made four of these FABULOUS binders! I thought of making one huge binder, but then I decided against it. Some things are laminated so that I don’t have to make a million copies and burn through ink. If it is something I need a record of I will scan it. First, I went to Wal-Mart and bought some file folders for a $1 for three and found some old 3-ring binders downstairs that were in great condition. Next, I printed off all the copies I would need for the four binders. Then I laminated the ones that I needed to. If you don’t have a laminator I recommend you buy one, it is worth the investment of $20-30. Last, I three-hole punched everything and put them in the correct binders.

Binder #1 – Is my household vital information. This binder has a section for all five members of my house. Each person has a personal information sheet, basic medical information, and a medication information sheet. For the three of us over 16 years of age we each have a wallets contents sheet. The two younger kids also have a school information, medicine checklist (laminated two-sided), and a usual day in our home sheet. After all those tabs I have a cars tab and a car maintenance sheet for each of our cars. Next is our home inventory, home maintenance, dvd inventory, book inventory, and pet info tabs and sheet.

Binder #2 – Is my everyday binder that has everything an outsider or my husband would need to run my household if I was not around. This binder has the following sections in it: calendar, cleaning, menu planning, to do, contacts, and holidays/traditions. Most of these pages are laminated. I laminated pages like Our House: Week at a Glance, My weekly cleaning routine, cleaning checklists, 3 laminated monthly calendars for meal planning, weekly meal plan, pantry inventory, freezer inventory, daily action planner, weekly action planner, and my daily docket.

Binder #3 – Is my financial binder that has our budget, and account information. I have all our utilities information in one place. I also keep our current bills in the back, along with any coupon books for payments.

Binder #4 – Is all for my father-in-law and my sanity. After his wife died we needed to keep this information in a place that we knew where it was. This book has his personal information, medical information, and his finance information.

Celia was an ordinary slave–until she struck back at her abusive master and became the defendant in a landmark trial that threatened to undermine the very foundations of the South’s “Peculiar Institution.”

This story takes place in 1855, Calloway county, Missouri.

It’s about a slave named Celia in the american slavery crisis. for a time she was framed for the murder of her master but the people found out it wasn’t her. The court found that Ceila was the witness of a crime. Ceila met other slaves and their masters’.

I kind of liked the book and I would give it 2/5 (i didn’t like it but i didn’t hate it.) i didn’t like it because the subject of the story made me mad but it told a great story.

Reading: Finish Celia, A Slave and start Will at the Battle of Gettysburg

Spanish: Continue learning about people and greetings

We need to work a bit more to get caught up to where we need to be before the extra week off.

Lastly, I spent an hour Friday chalking this into creation! We have a split foyer and when you walk in if you look down the steps, this is what you see. I love it, I even hair sprayed it to keep it safe.

I found this and thought with all the cold weather this is a great idea!

Every parent knows that when a little bundle of joy joins the family, parents’ social lives will likely suffer. Changing nappies, cooking, shuttling children to and from their various activities; when it’s finally time for bedtime who could blame mums…

I really can’t stay. But baby it’s cold outside. I’ve got to go way. Whoa, but it’s cold outside. This evening has been, In hopin that you’d drop in, So very nice. I’ll hold your hands, they’re just like ice

oh cos it’s… cold outside.

It is freezing outside! Absolutely FREEZING! Heck even my chickens want nothing to do with coming out of the run or the coop.

Fresh Eggs? If we can get to them in the 20 minutes it takes them to freeze solid and start to crack.

I admit that I pushed Humpty Dumpty, I let the dogs out, and I am the fool always praying for a blizzard. But I like my cold in the positive numbers and more in the 20s. If it has to be this cold I like snow on the ground. I like a nice warm fire, but we have no fireplace and sitting out in these temps around the fire pit is not an option.

Yesterday we baked in an effort to help keep the house warm. And boy did we bake!

Love the smell of chocolate baking in the morning!

Some Apple Pie Cupcakes and some chocolate hazelnut cupcakes.

Some cupcakes for a customer, his company packages and distributes the hazelnut spread that I use.

Made my new Valentine’s Day cupcake for kids. It is called a warm fuzzy and it has bubblegum flavored icing and white chocolate.

We even made a natural yeast starter for part of science and math. He also helped me convert a bunch of recipes and learned that 8oz doesn’t always mean a cup!

B-man: is yeast a living thing?
Me: Yes, sir!
B-man: I will look it up to see what classification it is in……. it is a fungi! We eat fungi!!!
Me: Afraid so
B-man: Fungi tastes good!!!! We shall call the starter Francis Bobbio
Me: Wonderful

Here is how you start the Natural Yeast Starter: (The numbers are the days)

5oz starter from day one, 5oz organic whole-wheat flour, and 5oz water; discard 5oz of the starter add remaining 5oz of starter to the flour and water and mix to incorporate. Ferment overnight at room temp.

I will give you the rest of the instructions tomorrow for day three!

I found some interesting learning material since most of the nation is stuck in this cold weather pattern.

Originally, we only planned to take 2 weeks off for the holidays. That was until my Dad called and asked me to spend 2 days painting his master bedroom in December.

This took two days away from our studies……. kind of. I had him work on lapbooks and watch Magic School Bus and watch some BrainPop videos. But we are behind as we start the new year off. But that is ok, we are not going to let it affect us. We are just picking up where we left off.

This week will look like this for us……

Math: Fractions, mixed Numbers, and decimals. We are going to do some hands on work with recipes and we are making a bread starter.

Language Arts: MineCraft Story Starters, main ideas, writing paragraphs, & writing a research paper. If you have a boy who is crazy about MineCraft, the story starters are amazing and you should check them out. You have to subscribe to get them but it is very much worth it!

Science: Animal Kingdom, Cells, Ernest Just, Different Kinds of Cells, and Plant vs. Animal Cells. We are doing two lapbooks for this.